The Future of Shooting in Video Games. What Can Virtual Reality Bring to the Table?

Virtual reality is huge right now and it has found major applications in gaming and videos. Shooting and gun play is a major part of video games today and we have to wonder how that will work out in virtual reality.

Guns and Shooting and our Exposure to it

A lot of kids have been exposed to toy guns and play acting shooting events long before they even encounter them in video games and at that very young age they already witness the mysterious power of the gun and the way in which it transfers that power instantly to its holder. When they eventually begin to play video games, they most likely opt for these ones that have gun fights and a variety of guns in its repository.

Gun manufacturers now license out their weapons to game companies and this tells you how much detail needs to be right about the gun play in these games. Video game designers have become very familiar with this power of guns long ago and the virtual gun is one of the most used tool sin the designers corner. Our desire to reach into the television screen and with just a click or a phut, do things that will affect other objects both near and far is very intense. Virtual guns give us the feeling of power. By just changing the class of guns, you alter the whole rhythm and flow of the game.

Different guns have different feelings attached to them based entirely on their mode of operation. Shotguns are close range and require intimacy. Sniper rifles are like the opposite and they offer remote omniscience because you have all the power to take out a target that doesn’t even know its being targeted. Machine guns spray randomly and entail a carefree feeling. All of these weapons evoke different feelings in video games and we all have our preferred weapons of choice based on preference or ability.

Shooting in Virtual Reality

For all the promise that this new digital age holds, guns appear to be a major tool in the merging world of virtual reality. Shooting guns is now the primary mode of interaction of many of the early virtual reality games. In one game in particular, you must assemble a weapon from a clutter of glinting pieces laid out on table before you and use it on enemies coming for you. One of HTC Vive headsets declares “VR is here” next to an image of a woman wearing the headset while shooting a virtual gun.

While guns have lost none of their efficiency in translation, the act of shooting in virtual reality has actually gained a new impact. Firing a virtual gun at a virtual being feels inconsequential in most video games. “VR breaks down that wall,” Scott Stephan, an American VR game producer recently told me. “Do I want to shoot people in VR? I really don’t think so.”

The psychological line between fiction and reality is blurred heavily by virtual reality technology. So much so that it can be used by the military as a device for training or even torture.

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